I don't like bullies. (Redux.)
I don't like bullies. I ESPECIALLY do not like the ignorant, rude, po-faced, anal-retentive little berks running one very well-known Sherlock community where they have made a speciality of insulting and scaring off amusing posters and good writers, in the name, most recently, of their literal-minded, politically-correct demands for idiotic warnings. Not just any warnings, mind you, and not even just warnings for the many, many things they feel wee fragile readers should be protected from; but warnings phrased exactly the way they want - sometimes retroactively.
The latest exploit of these Olympic-class whingers - I refer you to their recent "haitus" (sic) posts bemoaning the ingratitude of their members - has been to contact an absolutely first-rate newcomer to the fandom, whose posts linking to a multi-chaptered crossover fic of stellar quality THEY HAD PASSED IN THE FIRST PLACE, to now tell this writer that the warnings - yes, dear reader, there WERE warnings - were "not acceptable", "outright appalling", not "treated with [enough] respect" and that the phrase "If these things bother you, please don't continue" was an insult to the seriousness of some of the things warned against. "It is only now that I have taken a look at your past entries that I realise you have been doing this for some time," our (understandably shell-shocked) writer is then told. "I am therefore going to ask you to update your warnings to something less offensive, or your posts will be removed in their entirety. Please do not post things of this nature to this community."
Follows a lecture of unsurpassed twaddle to the effect that rape has a bad effect on people, rounded off with the slimy suggestion that "including this statement tells those who have, in real life, experienced rape that there are people around them within this community who find rape acceptable or even an enjoyable subject."
Note that this tiny-brained, small-minded self-important little creep isn't alluding to the actual contents of the fic - which has some gruesome scenes indeed, perfectly warranted by the storyline - but to the phrasing of the warnings, which in addition to the phrase objected to did include, quite rightly, rape and torture. There isn't any doubt in the fic, incidentally, that these things are perpetrated by bad people, some referring to recent historical conflicts in which such things actually took place. In other words, this is not one of the many fics touted around that same community where, as long as you warn against it, anything goes in the name of improbable sexual titillation. (If I hear the word "omega" JUST ONE MORE TIME...)
Our poor writer is, understandably, reeling from this. Their leaving the community is a given; my worry is that they might leave the Sherlock fandom altogether, which would be a pity. There are fewer truly good writers around than one might think; all we can and should do is encourage them, nurture them, comment on their fics and BUY THEIR BOOKS when they go pro, which in the present case is very likely to happen. The changing ways of the publishing and creative world are such that some of today's best pro talents are yesterday's fans, from Ron Moore and Peter Jackson to Naomi Novik, Lois McMaster Bujold, Una McCormack and Jo Graham. The last thing we need are pathetic little martinets SCARING AWAY THE TALENT.
There are many other Sherlock communities out there, enough that one doesn't need to bother with the stupidities I've just described - and I left quite a bit out; not to mention juicy anecdotes swapped around the Sherlock neighbourhood by other victims of the aforementioned mods while the latter were out of action taking the waters in Casablanca back in April. Let me recommend the nice, laid-back, easy-going people at bbcsherlock, totallysherlock, our_bbcsherlock, sherlock_john, 221bsherlock, the invaluable holmesian_news, 221b_recs, dilestrade, sherlestrade and many more. (If I've forgotten any you like, tell me in the Comments and I'll add them here.)
ETA: I have now been in contact with the writer, who tells me: "i am asian; maybe that is partly why i do not see many things through american eyes. in my part of the world, death, rape, torture, illegal detention, all these things were part, for a long time, of daily life; people were traumatised but most soldiered on, and they didn't force others to view life through their cracked or broken lenses." She is indeed thinking of leaving LJ and writing altogether.
I cannot BEGIN to express my complete disgust at the blown-up sense of entitlement of the shallow, self-centred, privileged imbeciles running that comm. They have made-up, by-the-numbers notions of things they do not understand in the least, fostered by the worst kind of smug, ignorant, cover-your-ass, craven totalitarian practices of what passes for a public education system in the US. When faced with the deeper truth expressed by someone with actual experience of what she transmutes into fic (that quality had to come from somewhere), they are neither able to recognise it, nor learn anything by it. This is by no means the first incident of that kind I hear about this comm. It is now time to leave it and boycott it.
ETA again: Your reactions are terrific. The author has read some of them and been cheered by them, so thank you! I have now made a new post linking to her fic and to her own post about the whole debacle.
Son of ETA: As promised, names of MOAR nice Sherlock comms mentioned in the comments: johnsherlock, 221b_baker_str, sherlock100, sherlock-ldws, sherlock-remix, sherlockrare
The latest exploit of these Olympic-class whingers - I refer you to their recent "haitus" (sic) posts bemoaning the ingratitude of their members - has been to contact an absolutely first-rate newcomer to the fandom, whose posts linking to a multi-chaptered crossover fic of stellar quality THEY HAD PASSED IN THE FIRST PLACE, to now tell this writer that the warnings - yes, dear reader, there WERE warnings - were "not acceptable", "outright appalling", not "treated with [enough] respect" and that the phrase "If these things bother you, please don't continue" was an insult to the seriousness of some of the things warned against. "It is only now that I have taken a look at your past entries that I realise you have been doing this for some time," our (understandably shell-shocked) writer is then told. "I am therefore going to ask you to update your warnings to something less offensive, or your posts will be removed in their entirety. Please do not post things of this nature to this community."
Follows a lecture of unsurpassed twaddle to the effect that rape has a bad effect on people, rounded off with the slimy suggestion that "including this statement tells those who have, in real life, experienced rape that there are people around them within this community who find rape acceptable or even an enjoyable subject."
Note that this tiny-brained, small-minded self-important little creep isn't alluding to the actual contents of the fic - which has some gruesome scenes indeed, perfectly warranted by the storyline - but to the phrasing of the warnings, which in addition to the phrase objected to did include, quite rightly, rape and torture. There isn't any doubt in the fic, incidentally, that these things are perpetrated by bad people, some referring to recent historical conflicts in which such things actually took place. In other words, this is not one of the many fics touted around that same community where, as long as you warn against it, anything goes in the name of improbable sexual titillation. (If I hear the word "omega" JUST ONE MORE TIME...)
Our poor writer is, understandably, reeling from this. Their leaving the community is a given; my worry is that they might leave the Sherlock fandom altogether, which would be a pity. There are fewer truly good writers around than one might think; all we can and should do is encourage them, nurture them, comment on their fics and BUY THEIR BOOKS when they go pro, which in the present case is very likely to happen. The changing ways of the publishing and creative world are such that some of today's best pro talents are yesterday's fans, from Ron Moore and Peter Jackson to Naomi Novik, Lois McMaster Bujold, Una McCormack and Jo Graham. The last thing we need are pathetic little martinets SCARING AWAY THE TALENT.
There are many other Sherlock communities out there, enough that one doesn't need to bother with the stupidities I've just described - and I left quite a bit out; not to mention juicy anecdotes swapped around the Sherlock neighbourhood by other victims of the aforementioned mods while the latter were out of action taking the waters in Casablanca back in April. Let me recommend the nice, laid-back, easy-going people at bbcsherlock, totallysherlock, our_bbcsherlock, sherlock_john, 221bsherlock, the invaluable holmesian_news, 221b_recs, dilestrade, sherlestrade and many more. (If I've forgotten any you like, tell me in the Comments and I'll add them here.)
ETA: I have now been in contact with the writer, who tells me: "i am asian; maybe that is partly why i do not see many things through american eyes. in my part of the world, death, rape, torture, illegal detention, all these things were part, for a long time, of daily life; people were traumatised but most soldiered on, and they didn't force others to view life through their cracked or broken lenses." She is indeed thinking of leaving LJ and writing altogether.
I cannot BEGIN to express my complete disgust at the blown-up sense of entitlement of the shallow, self-centred, privileged imbeciles running that comm. They have made-up, by-the-numbers notions of things they do not understand in the least, fostered by the worst kind of smug, ignorant, cover-your-ass, craven totalitarian practices of what passes for a public education system in the US. When faced with the deeper truth expressed by someone with actual experience of what she transmutes into fic (that quality had to come from somewhere), they are neither able to recognise it, nor learn anything by it. This is by no means the first incident of that kind I hear about this comm. It is now time to leave it and boycott it.
ETA again: Your reactions are terrific. The author has read some of them and been cheered by them, so thank you! I have now made a new post linking to her fic and to her own post about the whole debacle.
Son of ETA: As promised, names of MOAR nice Sherlock comms mentioned in the comments: johnsherlock, 221b_baker_str, sherlock100, sherlock-ldws, sherlock-remix, sherlockrare